


The Spider

by TheGeekLord



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Brothels, Kinda, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 16:40:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18154379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGeekLord/pseuds/TheGeekLord
Summary: Mr Moriarty is a strange employer. Mr Moran is altogether something else.A short experimentation in style.





	The Spider

Mr Moriarty is a strange employer.

He isn’t a bad one, not by any means. He’s always… lovely would be an overstatement, but he is always cordial to the girls. He’s strange, he took a room over the business though he never samples the goods. The girls spot comings and goings, but he never approaches. Any information from the clientele goes through Madam, she's the only one who ever meets with Mr Moriarty.  

Sometimes he takes tea in the parlour, though no one knows whether it’s to intimidate the clientele or if he’s genuinely interested in the business.

He’s like a spider, sitting in the middle of his web of lies and deceit. Power and debt. Sometimes he catches a pull on one of the threads and he gets this look in his eye, a kind of bizarre excitement. He’ll follow it until the end, and the end usually comes with a hefty pay-out. Sometimes he would be kind enough to split some of his earnings. New soft sheets for the rooms, a chandelier in the parlour, all sorts of indulgences.

But nothing was like the day the man came.

It started with Mr Moriarty getting this look in his eye like nothing anyone had seen before. He was like a magpie spotting a silver pocket watch. He’d leave at all hours, coming and going at times no reasonable gentleman would be abroad- though Mr Moriarty is no _reasonable_ gentleman. Then one day, he disappeared for a week and that’s when he brought the man back with him.

He is _big_ , that’s the first thing to notice about him. Muscular, but in a different way than the workers who would oft grace these doors. His was a hidden strength, it showed in the way he moved, like a big cat stalking his prey. And the scars. Great, thick lines of puckered pink skin down one eye and across his nose. They should have been ugly, but somehow he suited them.

Madam told the girls to stay away from him, he was dangerous. She was the only one selected to meet him, Mr Moriarty called her to a meeting himself. The Basher she called him, said that’s how Mr Moriarty had made his introductions. Basher Moran.

He was a strange one. The way he looked at Mr Moriarty sometimes, following him around like a lost little cub for the first few weeks of his employment. Avoiding the girls like he was under orders not to touch. He moved into the second bedroom in Mr Moriarty’s rooms. That caused a stir in the house, Mr Moriarty never shared space, not willingly. Less than a month in his employ and he was heard sassing. He called Mr Moriarty ‘Boss’ but he never made it sound like he was a subordinate. Once he was even heard throwing out a ‘Jim’, but only once. He was proud enough of the fresh scar down his chest though, showed it off with unlaced shirts and a smirking grin that barely left his face all week.

They made a strange pair, Mr’s Moriarty and Moran. They took meetings together, the first time another has been permitted to sit in on business talks. Even Madam was ushered out whenever she dared enter with refreshments. Mr Moriarty submitted to using him as somewhat of a bodyguard at times, though it seems his true job was as a hired killer. There were times he would stumble in late at night, when business was hitting its peak. One night he was caught by one of the girls, cleaning herself up after seeing a regular, covered in blood with the widest, most terrifying grin on his face. A grin that sent chills down the spine. She said Mr Moriarty had called him ‘Tiger’ in this soft voice, like nothing she had ever heard him use.

She left not long after.

Sometimes when Mr Moriarty went away on business he took Mr Moran, and sometimes he left him to run the business alone as his second in command. Those were the times when notes would appear around the house, always addressed to ‘Killer-mine’, always taken up on the tray Madam would deliver outside the locked door. Whenever Mr Moran would appear, he would have that terrifying grin.

Sometimes there were noises from their rooms. None of the girls were naïve enough to misinterpret, all the noises a man could make had rung in their ears a thousand times. But they should never be mentioned. No one really knew what would happen, and no one would speculate on it. If Madam caught a girl gossiping about them she would punish them raw. She said she was doing a kindness. If Mr Moran, or heaven forfend Mr Moriarty, had caught them then the punishments would be much harsher.

Sometimes girls just disappeared come morning.

Since Mr Moran appeared, the business only grew. The weeks when Mr Moriarty would lock himself away in his rooms, and a foul, dark cloud ascended on the house grew fewer and fewer. There were times when Mr Moran would leave on business, and Mr Moriarty would rarely be in his rooms, and there were times when he wouldn’t leave. Those where the times with the strangest of noises at the oddest of hours, and the most bizarre of stenches. They always ceased at Mr Moran’s return.

Mr Moriarty is a strange employer, but Mr Moran is an even stranger employee. 


End file.
